MightyHive, the data and in-housing consultancy owned by Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital has made two major acquisitions, beefing up its adtech capabilities as it continues to position itself as a valid alternative to traditional holding co. agencies.
Conversion Works and Datalicious Korea will merge with MightyHive, which launched in Canada one year ago and works with clients like Home Depot.
Tessa Ohlendorf, managing director of MightyHive Canada, tells MiC that even though Datalicious Korea (a former subsidiary of Datalicious LTD) is located in Asia, its work with MightyHive will extend to all markets in which it operates.
Datalicious, founded in 2016, is a data and analytics consultancy with the primary focus of “helping marketers make sense of their data,” which Ohlendorf says is one of MightyHive’s key pillars. In particular, says Ohlendorf, first-party data is a major concern for many of MightyHive’s clients.
While Ohlendorf admits ConversionWorks is “not as well known” as Datalicious, she notes that the six-year-old company with a staff of 26 won Analytics Agency of the Year in 2018 from The Drum. Its goal is to use data to help clients predict conversions.
With two global companies now part of MightyHive’s offering, Ohlendorf says it’s allowing the consultancy to diversify its skill set as client needs evolve. “Peter Kim, our founder, always talks about the spectrum of control, and what we unpack in these conversations [with clients] is that in-housing can be any number of things. It can be a full media slate going in-house, or it can be just data and analytics.”
A recent Ipsos study found that few marketers take everything in-house, but many have some in-housing activity, which varies across categories and disciplines. For example, 80% of marketer respondents say they take email marketing in-house.
After its first full year in Canada, Ohlendorf says the company has seen movement in the Canadian market toward taking data and analytics in-house. “Marketers are looking at data and analytics much more than before, and I think we’re really going to continue down that route of first-party data. It makes the most sense to be in-housed, especially in Canada, where marketers like to have an alternative to traditional holding cos and large agency structures. They want to have that control over their data.”
There may be potential in Canada’s financial and insurance sectors, in particular. A recent study conducted by Aite Group found that the fractured nature and sheer volume of data causes 65% of Canadian executives in this sector to struggle. The same number of respondents say they plan to increase spending on newer forms of data. Additionally, over the next two years, 87% of Canadian institutions say they have plans to use alternative data like mobile, purchase or social media data, but only 20% of firms say they have the ability to integrate new data solutions.
